The present invention relates to the purification of metallurgical grade silicon to produce solar grade silicon.
Silicon that is used in the manufacture of solar cells must have a minimum purity that is referred to here as solar grade (SG) silicon. SG silicon has significantly higher purity than a lower metallurgical grade (MG) silicon, although solar grade can be lower than electronic grade (EG) silicon, which is used for manufacturing semiconductor devices. While MG silicon can have up to 10,000 ppm of impurities and EG silicon requires less than 1 ppb of donor or acceptor impurities, SG silicon should have no more than 5 ppm of metallic impurities.
To remove from a batch of silicon impurities that have low segregation coefficients, it is well known to provide directional solidification so that the impurities with low segregation coefficients can be segregated to the last part of the melt to solidify these impurities for removal. To remove impurities with high segregation coefficients, however, particularly boron and phosphorus, MG silicon is typically converted to a gaseous product and then purified by distillation.
A number of efforts have been made to efficiently produce SG silicon as an intermediate grade between MG silicon and EG silicon. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,091, for example, MG silicon is heated to a molten state in a refractory-lined crucible with a heating coil wrapped around it. A high-temperature, high-velocity plasma jet directs an inert gas with steam and/or silica powder from a height of 50 mm to produce a hot spot where boron and carbon escape. In an article by Baba, et al, "Metallurgical Purification for Production of Solar Grade Silicon from Metallic Grade Silicon," a rather costly four-step process is described for refining small quantities of MG silicon. With this process, phosphorous is removed with an electron beam gun and the silicon melt is directionally solidified. Then, boron and carbon are removed by blowing argon plasma with water vapor into the melted silicon, and a second directional solidification process is performed. This process requires an hour to remove phosphorus and boron from just a few kilograms of liquid silicon.
Other efforts have been made to produce SG silicon with methods that would provide lower cost than that required to produce EG than silicon. Such efforts have involved using higher purity raw materials in an arc furnace, acid leaching, reactive gas treatments in a molten state, slagging, and dissolution of MG silicon in a metal followed by recrystalization. None of these processes, however, has effectively removed a sufficient amount of impurities, particularly boron and phosphorous, in a cost-effective manner.
It would be desirable to have an efficient method for purifying large amounts of MG silicon to produce SG silicon.